Methodology: sources, matching and definitions

On this page

1. Where the records come from
2. How firms are matched
3. Definitions
4. Minimum counts and withheld numbers
5. Privacy: people are left out
6. How often it is updated
7. Known limitations
8. Independence: no paid placement
9. Corrections
10. Sources city by city

Where the records come from

Every number on the site comes from public records kept by the government office that issues building permits in each of the 57 cities and counties we cover: their open-data portals, permit exports or public permit searches. License status comes from the state or city licensing board where it publishes a file we can match against. Home values come from the county assessor or appraisal district, and are used only to describe the kind of homes a contractor works on.

We cover residential work: permits on one- and two-family homes (the exact scope varies with what each file lets us identify). Most cities show a three-year window ending with the last full month in the file. The city-by-city list below names the permit source, the license file, the home-value source, the window and the date we last read the file for each place; each city's own How the records work page adds the details.

How firms are matched

Which name counts. A permit's contractor is the business the file names as the contractor for that work. Where a file lists several contacts, we use the one for the permit's trade (the electrical contractor on an electrical permit), else the general contractor. Owners, applicants and tenants are not used as the contractor.

Name normalization. Contractor names are typed by hand and spelled many ways. To group a firm's permits we build a matching key from the name: capital letters, punctuation removed, legal endings such as LLC, Inc or Corp dropped, and trailing license codes removed. The key is deliberately conservative: it does not merge different names, because a shared name is not proof of a shared company. So a firm that files under two names can appear twice, and two firms with the same name on the same file share one record. Names are shown in normal capitalization (“Bob's Heating & A/C LLC”), from the name as filed.

License matching. Where a licensing board publishes its file, we match each firm to it by business name, or by license number when the permit carries one. A name match can miss a license (a firm filing under a trade name, or a sole proprietor licensed under their own name), so a missing match is a reason to check, not a finding. A firm whose matched license is expired or has a problem is listed after every other firm. We hold no license file for 26 of the 57 places; there the pages say so and link to the board's own lookup.

Definitions

• PermitOne permit record as the office issued it. Counts are permits, not jobs: one job can need several permits (building, electrical, plumbing), and one permit can cover several visits. Some cities count permits by the same firm on the same property and day as one job; their about pages say so.
• Finished (final inspection)A permit counts as finished when the office's file records it as complete: a passed final inspection, a “finaled” or closed status, or a letter of completion, depending on what the file records. A passed final means the work met code when inspected. It is not a grade of workmanship, and a permit can stay open for paperwork reasons.
• Completion rateThe share of a firm's permits that are at least a year old and have been finished. It is shown only for firms with at least 5 (8 or 20 in a few cities) such permits, and in some cities it is compared with permits of the same trade issued in the same quarter, so a slow quarter for everyone doesn't count against one firm.
• Days to finalThe number of days from the date a permit was issued to the date the office recorded its final inspection or closeout. City and trade figures are medians: half of permits take less, half take longer. It is the time to finish the work and close the permit, not the wait for approval. In a few cities the file has no completion date, and speed is estimated from permit status and age; those pages say it is an estimate.
• Filed value, not priceThe job value the contractor or applicant wrote on the permit application. It is often used to set the permit fee, so it can be low, rounded or zero. It is not a quote and not the final bill. “Typical cost” and “usual job” are medians of filed values. A few offices compute the value themselves from floor area; there it shows job size, not price, and no price comparison is shown.
• Last 12 monthsThe 12 months ending with the last month in the city's file, not the 12 months before today. When a city's file is more than three months old, pages name the months instead (“the last 12 months on file”); that applies now to Honolulu, Little Rock, AR, Boulder County (unincorporated).
• Fit scoreThe score combines how much of this exact work a contractor has on record, how often their older permits reached completion (where we can measure it), how well their usual job size matches your budget, how recently they've been active, and how much of their work is near you. A measure we can't calculate is left out rather than guessed, and a thin record pulls the score toward the middle. A contractor whose matched license has a problem is listed after everyone else. You set the weights with the sliders on every list. The score is never a quality rating or a recommendation.
• License matchWhether a firm's name (or license number) matches an active entry in the licensing board's published file. See How firms are matched.

Minimum counts and withheld numbers

• A firm gets its own page and a place in the A–Z list with 5 or more matching permits in the window.
• Completion rate needs at least 5 (8 or 20 in a few cities) permits a year or more old; speed is shown for firms with at least 10 (20 in a few cities) permits.
• Permit-statistics tables and charts list a trade only with at least 100 permits.
• A cost page needs at least 100 permits with a filed value, and a filed value on at least 80% of the trade's permits; a firm's own usual value is shown only from 5 or more priced permits.
• A ZIP code gets a page with at least 200 permits in the window.
• A thin record pulls a firm's score toward the middle, so a firm with three permits can't top a list on luck.
• A number we can't measure reliably is left out, not guessed or filled in. Completion rate is not shown in Orlando, Raleigh, Colorado Springs, Mesa, Palo Alto, Ames; speed is not shown in Albuquerque, Scottsdale, Little Rock, AR, Bernalillo County (unincorporated); each city's about page says why (for example, a file that closes almost every permit eventually, or one with no completion date).

How often it is updated

We read each city's file about once a month and rebuild the pages from it. Every city page states the month its records run through; a permit filed after that isn't on the site yet. When a city changes systems or its file stops updating, we say so on that city's pages rather than showing old numbers as current.

The date each city's file was last read is in the city-by-city list. Corrections made at the source (the permit office or licensing board) reach the site on the next read.

Known limitations

• Not every job needs a permit, and some work is done without one, so a firm's record shows its permitted work in that place, not all of its work.
• Work elsewhere isn't counted. Each record covers one permit office; a firm's jobs in the next town are not in that city's numbers.
• Names vary. A firm filing under two names can appear twice, and license matching by name can miss a license.
• Open is not unfinished. Permits can stay open for paperwork, and some offices close permits slowly, so completion and speed are signals, not verdicts.

City by city

• Anaheim, CA: Orange County does not publish a bulk assessment roll of home values (the County Assessor offers its roll only as a paid product), so this page cannot show the value of the homes each contractor works on, an Anaheim median home value, or a price-versus-similar-jobs comparison. The home-value setting has no effect here; job values, permit counts and close times come from the City's permit records. Anaheim electrical, HVAC, plumbing, water heater and EV charger permits carry no declared job value, so those trades show permit counts and close times only.
• Aspen, CO: Architects and designers often file Aspen building permits for their clients, so design firms are not ranked as builders; their permits count as unattributed.
• Cape Coral, FL: The City of Cape Coral's public permit file starts on January 1, 2025, when its current permitting system went live, so these records cover only January 2025 to September 2026 (21 months), not the three years shown for most cities. Permit counts are lower than a three-year record would show, and closeout is judged only on permits issued in 2025 (at least a year old).
• Chicago, IL: Speed: An estimate of how quickly their permits are marked complete, based on permit status and age. Many Chicago permits are never marked complete, so treat it as rough. Shown for firms with 20+ permits.
• Citrus Heights, CA: Sacramento County does not publish its assessed property roll (the County Assessor supplies it only on request, and the public parcel layer carries no values), so this page cannot show the value of the homes each contractor works on, a median home value, or a price-versus-similar-jobs comparison. The home-value setting has no effect here; job values, permit counts and close times come from the City of Citrus Heights building permit records.
• Elk Grove, CA: Sacramento County does not publish its assessed property roll (the County Assessor supplies it only on request, and the public parcel layer carries no values), so this page cannot show the value of the homes each contractor works on, an Elk Grove median home value, or a price-versus-similar-jobs comparison. The home-value setting has no effect here; job values, permit counts and close times come from the City of Elk Grove's TRAKiT permit records.
• Honolulu, HI: The City & County of Honolulu's public permit file ends June 30, 2025 (last refreshed August 2025). Counts, the last-12-months figures and closeout are as of that date, not today.
• Little Rock, AR: The City publishes its permit file as a periodic download; this edition runs to 30 April 2026, so the window is the 36 months 2023-05 to 2026-04.
• Marin County (unincorporated), CA: Home values here are the Marin County Assessor's assessed values (land plus improvements). Under Proposition 13 a home bought decades ago can carry a value far below what it would sell for today, so treat the home-value matching and the price-versus-similar-jobs comparison as rough. Marin's permit file has no status field: a permit counts as finished when the county records an approved final inspection. Counter permits for minor improvements (most bathroom and kitchen remodels, and nearly all solar since 2022) have no inspection records in the public file, so they count toward a firm's volume and prices but not its finish rate or speed. Covers unincorporated Marin only, not the 11 cities and towns.
• Mesa, AZ: Mesa's public permit file leaves the contractor blank on a growing share of newer permits (about two-thirds of residential permits named a contractor in 2023-24, half in 2025 and under a third in 2026), so counts for 2025-26 understate how much work firms did.
• New York City, NY: The city's records show stale license status for many electricians, so for them we show the license number with “status not published”. Check it yourself on DOB NOW.
• Orlando, FL: Completion rate is not shown in Orlando: almost every permit here is eventually closed, so it didn't separate contractors reliably in our tests.
• Palo Alto, CA: Santa Clara County does not publish assessed or market home values (the County Assessor sells its roll as a data file), so this page cannot show the value of the homes each contractor works on, a Palo Alto median home value, or a price-versus-similar-jobs comparison. The home-value setting has no effect here; job values, permit counts and close times come from the City's permit records.
• Pittsburgh, PA: Since mid-2024 the city files most residential building permits as Building & Development Applications, which never name a contractor, so remodel and new-home firm rankings reflect work from October 2023 to June 2024. Those applications do count toward the trades' permit totals, typical permit time and busiest months. Plumbing permits are issued by the county, so they aren't here. Home values are on the county's old 2012 base.
• Provo, UT: Provo's permit file names a contractor on most building permits (new homes, remodels, re-roofs, solar) but on almost no mechanical, electrical or plumbing permits, so HVAC, electrical and plumbing contractors are not ranked. Some permits that cover several townhome or apartment addresses are counted once.
• Sacramento County (unincorporated), CA: Sacramento County does not publish its assessed property roll (the County Assessor supplies it only on request, and the public parcel layer carries no values), so this page cannot show the value of the homes each contractor works on, a median home value, or a price-versus-similar-jobs comparison. The home-value setting has no effect here; job values, permit counts and close times come from Sacramento County's building permit records for the unincorporated county.
• Saint Paul, MN: Permits up to June 2025 come from the City's old public permit file; permits since come from PAULIE, the permit system the City launched in September 2025. Permits issued from July to mid-September 2025, while the City's systems were down after a cyberattack, are in neither source, so that gap is missing from the counts.
• San Diego County (unincorporated), CA: These are County of San Diego Planning & Development Services permits, which cover only the unincorporated county — not the City of San Diego or the other 17 incorporated cities. The County does not record a job value on solar, battery, HVAC, electrical, plumbing or water-heater permits, and where it does record one (new homes, ADUs, pools, re-roofs, accessory structures) the value is computed from the floor area at the County's standard rate per square foot, so it reflects job size, not the contractor's price, and no price comparison is shown.
• San Francisco, CA: Home values here are the San Francisco Assessor's 2025 assessed values (land plus improvements). Under Proposition 13 a home assessed at its 1980s purchase price can carry a value far below what it would sell for today, so treat the home-value matching and the price-versus-similar-jobs comparison as rough. Job values, permit counts and close times come from the DBI permit record.
• Scottsdale, AZ: Scottsdale moved to its new SPUR permit system on January 6, 2026. Permits up to the switch come from the City's open-data permit file; permits since come from SPUR's public permit search. Counts and the last-12-months figures cover October 2023 to September 2026 (last 12 months = October 2025 to September 2026). Window and door replacements and small combination permits don't identify a trade and aren't ranked.

Corrections

We change a page only to match the public record. A wrong or missing permit is fixed at the permit office and reaches the site on our next read; a missed license match is fixed when you send us the license number; a firm merged with or split from another is fixed when you tell us which permits belong to whom. Write to corrections at contractorrecords dot com with the firm name, the city and what's wrong. We check the source and fix it. We don't take money to change a page. More on corrections →